A perfect cold temperature, sunny skies and world-cup snow conditions made for an awesome day at the Range for Saturday’s Range Ramble BKL Race. About thirty kids turned out for the race, and while most of the kids were from MNC, we also had some good competition from Onion River Nordic, Craftsbury, Sleepy Hollow BKL, and Frost Mountain. Very notably, we had a number of  MNC Friday Foxes join us and for most them, it was their first race ever! For Results & photos:  Range Ramble Results

In the 1/2 age class, we had Hazen Abbot, Kate Carlson, Ryley Morgeau, Lily Waite, Fiona McCormick, Ginny Haggerty, Phoebe Ornlam, Cally Abbott, Sylvie Minkoff, and Hazel Fasching ski a fast 1km on the sprint loop. I am so impressed with what a big group of 1/2’s we have and how well they can all ski!  There are lots of kids in this age group and I can’t wait to see them all get faster together.

Lily, Hazen, Phoebe, Kally, Sylvie & Hazel awaiting the start of the 1/2 race.

In the 3/4 race, we had Lena Haggerty, William Wallace, Liam Repp and Crosby Waite all racing for the first time. Way to go guys! They joined veteran 3/4 racers, Brady Morigeau and Niko Cuneo for  a quick sprint around the airplane loop. Unfortunately, Niko broke a pole and had to experience what it’s like to ski a race with only one good pole. Brady put in a very fast time to take the over-all win. I was especially impressed with Crosby who looked great on his skis and took second. Awesome job to everyone!

We have a lot of competition among the MNC BKL skiers in Grades 5 and 6 and this race really showcased that. In the boys race, Carl Priganc used his powerful V-2 to come in a speedy second place to the always fast Cormac Leahy from Craftsbury. In the girls race, we had Virginia Cobb, Carly Trapeni, Mia Diller and Maise Franke (who raced for the first time). We’ve been working hard in practice on putting more power into our V-2 technique and I’ve been really impressed at how some of these 5/6 skiers’ V-2 has really improved. Watching Maise skiing close behind another skier in the lap zone, I called out “Maise- V-2!”. She exchanged her V-1 for a V-2 and quickly passed that skier! Well done! Congratulations to all these 5-6 skiers!

Many of our 7-8 skiers were skiing later in the high school Tour de Chittenden race that was scheduled to follow the BKL race, so it was a small 7-8 crowd. However, MNC skiers Aiden Burt and Gavin Schaaff surely turned many heads in the gathering high school crowd as they tore up the course with their powerful strides and beautiful technique. They speedily skied two laps of the airplane loop for a total of 4km to quickly wrap up the BKL race.

I want to thank all our parent volunteers for helping with the race: Carol Trapeni, Lisa Burt, Eden Shullenberger, Christa Alexander, Terence and Kari Cuneo, Brad Carlson, Vince Franke, Victoria Priganc, Joy Grossman, Leigh Samuels, and Ric Schaaf. Thanks to MNC junior skiers, Magda, Tim, Ben and Will for fore-running the age classes. A big thanks to Adam for setting up the course and staying to help the highschools clean up afterwards and a special thanks goes out to my husband, Max Cobb, who timed the race and helped me figure out how to make it all work in less than one hour. Lastly, thanks to Dan and Rob, our groomers at the Range, for providing us with world class ski conditions!